


Her body a blade

by marginalia



Category: Cat-Eye Willie Claims His Lover - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Song)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia
Summary: Her mother placed the blade in her hand, silver-sharp, its soft sheath embroidered with marks of power amongst the flowering vines. Told her to keep it close, about her person by day, under her pillow by night. To be ready to strike, and to strike with force and meaning.::Tags and warnings erring very much on the side of caution here, warning almost exclusively for the canon itself.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Her body a blade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheliak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/gifts).



The blade had been hers since she was barely more than a child, and her father might have said she was too young for it still, but he’d been gone too long to have a say. Gone too long for her to remember his voice or his person beyond the portrait. Gone too long to tell the story she might never be ready to hear of the deal he hadn’t known he’d been making.

Her mother placed the blade in her hand, silver-sharp, its soft sheath embroidered with marks of power amongst the flowering vines. Told her to keep it close, about her person by day, under her pillow by night. To be ready to strike, and to strike with force and meaning.

To strike at what was never said, and she knew not to ask.

When the time came she was more than a child, but not much, not enough to know that the game was over before she even took her seat at the table. She smelled the fire and brimstone on his breath, and after the game, after. After. After all of it, she set all her hopes aside and broke the silver in the place that should have held his heart.

She knew better than to believe it was enough, as his curse still rang in her ears, as her blood stopped. She hung the broken blade above her bed as a warning, as an amulet, cradled her belly as it grew, swore devotion in every breath, and when the child came, striking her through with terror and joy, she sang her mother’s songs to hide the sound of raven’s wings.

For twenty years she served the curse. She held her tiny family apart from the world, in their small home where she watched her cat-eyed child transform from a chubby infant to a beautiful young man in the blink of an eye. When she smelled the smoke on him, when shadows crossed his eyes and he stretched his arms to the open road, she knew it was time. 

Out in the meadow she goes, broken blade in her hand. _Until you’re buried_ she knows, the words like they were yesterday and in some ways they were. The edge still sharp, her breath soon gone, and her boy returns, new shadows in his eyes. Human shadows, for she could not protect him from everything.

He sings his grandmother’s songs as he buries her with the blade; he smells of the lavender and rosemary he plants around her. 

No more of the sulphur, no more of the dark, now only the flowering vines.


End file.
